Ismael Faro, former VP of Quantum and AI at IBM, has partnered with a visual effects artist and engineer who has worked at Industrial Light & Magic and Apple, and a builder of cloud and high-performance computing infrastructure at HPE and Fujitsu to bring to market an AI-fueled ad creation platform.
Kaitoi Labs has formally opened Kaitoi to the public. It’s described as a workspace where a media owner’s own team builds the workflow for an ad once, and reuses it for every ad after.
Take a regional broadcaster that makes a 20-second spot for a local car dealer, Kaitoi notes. “The next morning, a second dealer wants one like it: the team uploads the new car, types the offer and the city, picks a different lead character and presses ‘Run.’ The idea, the look and the brand rules stay exactly as the team set them, and the new spot is ready without rebuilding anything.”
Many media owners also make the ads that run in their space, Kaitoi notes. “Each new advertiser usually means starting again, with a new brief, new shots and a new edit. Kaitoi is built so that the team’s work is done once and reused, without handing the decisions to a machine.”
From brief to finished ad
A project starts with a brief written in plain language. AdMuse, Kaitoi’s advertising engine, proposes concepts, and the one the team chooses becomes a script, a visual treatment and a shot list. Video, images, voice and music come from models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Runway, ElevenLabs, fal and Stability, all through one Kaitoi account, and land on a storyboard and a timeline as a rough cut. The same idea can become a 16:9 spot, a vertical cut, an audio spot and a banner.
Penny, the assistant built into Kaitoi Studio, sets up and carries out the work from instructions in everyday language. It places generated material on the storyboard and the timeline, and when a task needs something the platform does not yet offer, such as a colour grade, a brand rule or a model released the day before, Penny writes the new step and adds it to the workflow, where the team can inspect and edit it. Studio already includes more than 440 of these steps, ready to use.
One click for every ad after
When the workflow works, the team publishes it as a Station: a simple app with its own link and a short form. For the next ad, the team or the advertiser enters the product and the offer and presses Run.
“A media owner’s team already knows how to make a good ad. The hard part is making it again for every advertiser,” said Jacobo Barreiro, one of the three co-founder of Kaitoi Labs. “In Kaitoi the team builds that workflow once, and the decisions stay with the team.”
Every run records which provider produced each asset and what it cost. Runs are charged at the provider’s price, with no Kaitoi fee on top. Kaitoi does not train models on users’ work, and what users make belongs to them.
Nando Sierra built cloud and high-performance computing at HPE and Fujitsu. Guillermo Navarro, winner of the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, advises the company.
Pricing and availability
Kaitoi is available today in English and Spanish at kaitoi.io, with no waitlist and no approval process. New accounts receive 1,000 free credits, at one US cent per credit, and building a workflow is free. Paid plans are Indie, at 49 US dollars per seat per month with 3,500 credits, and Studio, at 199 US dollars per seat per month with 15,000 credits per seat.
Learn More: kaitoi.io.
